It is our Nieces first holy communion in May, so I am doing what any normal woman does and putting the case forward for a new dress. I need it to be a good length and also to have some kind of sleeves or a capped sleeve, for one I hate my arms and two, I thought I better be a little covered up for the church.

I already have this dress that I bought from Tesco at the end of last year, I love it but I have worn it to a family event already so I am thinking that really I would like another one. This is now reduced to £15, a steal at that price! It is a really lovely shape, has great lining and is a good length.

I seen this one when I was in Tesco today for £16 and thought it looked quite nice, it is a really good length as well which I need. I always struggle with knee length dresses being quite tall and they end up being nowhere near my knee.

Oh two week wait, we meet again, I would like to say nice to see you but to be honest it’s not. We have met far to many times over this last year and to be fair I would love to never see you again. However here we are and my question this time is should life stop? Should you change everything in these two weeks incase your pregnant, should you put your life on hold? At the start of this journey yes I did, I didn’t drink in the tww, I didn’t take any kind of medication not even paracetamol. Now though after trying for the best part of a year I admit to be wondering if I can keep this up for however long it would take us to fall pregnant.

There are two obvious camps on drinking alcohol in your tww, the drink till it’s pink camp or sober till it’s over one and I seem to dip in and out of both now.

Drink till it’s pink – those who will continue to have alcohol up until they see the two pink lines on the pregnancy test, the thought on this being that implantation does not occur until later on in the tww and therefore not sharing anything with the mother (some people also argue that the foetus does not share blood systems etc with the mother up until a certain point so alcohol does not pass) There is also a lot of talk about if you were not actively trying and fell pregnant then you will most likely have been drinking at some point throughout your tww without knowing.

Sober till it’s over – those who abstain from alcohol completely during the tww and possibly throughout the whole trying to conceive process, the thoughts normally on this are why risk it and not drinking alcohol is healthier.

How easy is it though to stick to one camp throughout this whole process? I for one seem to struggle with it each month, I have had months where I have never drunk at all, others where I have had some (I am not a big drinker so I don’t feel that I need to cut down as such) we are talking a few glasses of wine here and there and I have recently switched to a low alcohol rose beer for Friday/Saturday nights at home. Drinking this makes me feel that I am not missing out on life and it is only 3% alcohol so hardly anything. But that doesn’t stop me being stuck in the middle, should I or shouldn’t I put my life on hold just incase? Or will there be enough of that when I do eventually fall pregnant?

On Monday night we headed out to a local theatre to see Jimeoin , he’s an Irish comedian who lives in Australia but is over here touring at the minute.

We first seen him at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival a few years ago. We are lucky enough to live quite close to there so we get to see a lot of comedians every year when the festival is on. We have got to see some side splitting funny ones and Jimeoin did not disappoint.

When we seen he was touring the UK we had to get tickets and boy was he funny! I mean tears streaming down our faces funny. He just has a way of describing things and his facial expressions say a thousand words.

If you have never seen him and you like a bit of observational comedy then I suggest you watch this clip, even if you have seen him before watch it and smile. A nice little giggle for a Wednesday.

He is playing again at the Fringe Festival 9th – 18th August and he is touring again in the UK October to December, dates are on his website – Jimeoin Tour Dates.

My husband is self employed, which is great for him and really suits him but it can lead to money not coming in on a regular basis or as much of it at one time as you want. The first few months of the year have been a little slower than expected so it was time to tighten our belts a little.

One of the things I decided to try was the Aldi swap and save Challenge, is it just me or are their ads really funny? I’m not a food shopping snob but I do normally shop in the mainstream supermarkets and Tesco is our closet one, which I am now realising is actually quite expensive for most things. They are now advertising price matching though so that may help a little.

I decided that I would go to Aldi to do the main bulk of our shop and only go into the main stream supermarkets for items that you can’t get in Aldi, which to be honest is turning into not that much really. I have been really surprised with what I can get there and the quality of things as well. All their fresh meat is from British suppliers too which pleases me. They also do Aldi super 6 which is 6 items of fruit or veg which is on offer for around 2 weeks for 69p, who says healthy eating can’t be cheap!

I have been doing it for a few weeks and I have saved a small fortune, we have yet to try any of Aldi’s own brand products that we haven’t liked, yes you don’t get as much choice as the main supermarkets but that has worked in my favour too, I hate grocery shopping and I can now do it in half the time that it used to take.

If you haven’t tried it yet and you are looking to cut the cost of grocery shopping then I would recommend you pop in and take a look, I think it may surprise you.

Being 5ft 10 can cause a lot of problems when you are trying to be fashionable especially when it comes to shoes. I unfortunately have ended up with size 9 feet and up until a few years ago I couldn’t find nice girly shoes to go on by big slabs of feet and it used to really upset me. I can remember wanting nothing more than pretty shoes like my friends when I was in college and all I ended up wearing where mens trainers in light colours as basically that was all I could really get in my size. There were some online stores popping up at that point that catered for larger sizes but being a student they were mostly out of my price range.

That was until I discovered Next and the fact that the majority of their shoes, even the pretty ones go up to a size 9, I was so happy! The one downside is that most of the size 9’s are only available by ordering from the Next Directory so you do need to sign up to an account to get them from there, or you are able to order in store and get them delivered to the store. I have been in a few stores who hold size 9’s in stock too so it is worth checking when you are in.

I now get all my shoes from Next, I find that there is lots of variety and the price is good for the quality.

I have added some of my favourites from this seasons collection.

I love these, they are called ‘Flatforms’ perfect if you are tall as they are only 6cm tall instead of the 8-10cm that normal platforms seem to come in. I am already tall enough in my opinion so these would be perfect or adding a little bit of heel height without being too much.